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METRO VANCOUVER - When the B.C. Lions sacrificed a fifth-overall Canadian Football League draft pick in May to acquire veteran quarterback Kevin Glenn from Ottawa as a lavish injury insurance, nowhere in the fine print did it mention a four-interception deductible. Darn those insurance companies.

The Lions made a claim on their policy when starting quarterback Travis Lulay was placed on the six-game-injury list before the team’s Canadian Football League opener last Saturday. Nobody expected Glenn to suffer a quad, throwing four picks in his debut as the Lions were beaten 27-20 by the Edmonton Eskimos, losing a home opener for the first time since 2004.

This is Glenn’s 14th CFL season. He has passed for nearly 40,000 yards. Last season, in 335 throws, he was intercepted only seven times with the Calgary Stampeders. His ability to protect the football is reflected in Glenn’s good, if not quite outstanding, efficiency ratings since he became a starter a decade ago.

So when he was intercepted four times on 28 passes Saturday, we hardly knew what to make of it. Except, perhaps, that even 35-year-old quarterbacks get opening-night nerves and can push too hard to make a favourable first impression with a new team.

“I would say that’s absolutely correct,” Lions head coach Mike Benevides said Wednesday in Surrey before the team travelled from its training compound for Friday night’s road game against the Montreal Alouettes. “The pro and the guy Kevin is, he understands it’s a season opener and he’s working for a new team. Like anybody else — it’s human nature — you want to impress everybody, and sometimes you try to do too much. He hasn’t had a day like in a long, long time, where you turn the ball over four times.”

Actually, Glenn had a day like that with the Stampeders on Oct. 20, 2012, when he threw four interceptions against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

“But we won the game, so it was overlooked,” Glenn said after practice. “This was uncharacteristic. I don’t do those kinds of things. You don’t get alarmed because of what happened, you just learn from it. We have guys in the locker-room confident enough to know our season isn’t going to be dictated by one game.”

The Eskimos scored two touchdowns from turnovers, but Glenn’s costliest throw was a pass that was intercepted in the end zone by Eskimo Aaron Grymes after the Lions had marched to the 12-yard line. B.C. led 17-13 at the time, so even a field goal would have pushed their cushion to a touchdown.

But Glenn, rolling right, tried to throw across his body to his left, and the ball hung long enough for Grymes to leap in front of receiver Shawn Gore. Nobody but Doug Flutie makes that throw. It changed the game.

Was Glenn trying too hard?

“Too hard? I don’t think so,” Glenn said. “You can look at it now and say, ‘You shouldn’t have made that throw.’ But that’s any game, whether it was an incompletion or an interception. Even some completions you make, you say, ‘I shouldn’t have thrown that.’ But it was still a completion. I make that throw in the end zone and our guy catches it and we’re not even having this discussion.

“If you’re a quarterback and throw the ball as much as we do, and play as many games as I’ve played, that stuff is going to happen. You’ve just got to learn from it. I’m not one to dwell on it. I think I learned it from Danny McManus (the retired risk-reward quarterback), who was a guy who threw some interceptions and wouldn’t even think twice about it. That helps you as a quarterback when you don’t dwell on that kind of stuff.”

Glenn and the Lions can put it behind them with a win in Montreal.

As Lulay’s surgically repaired shoulder heals more slowly than hoped, Glenn will likely be in charge of the offence for at least six games. As impressive as National Football League refugee John Beck, 32, has looked since signing with the Lions, he is the backup and Glenn is the fill-in starter. Lulay’s injury is why the Lions acquired Glenn.

There are enough weapons on offence — and a strong-enough defence — that Glenn should not have to make spectacular plays for the Lions to win more than they lose. But he has to be efficient and smart. He has to be what he has been throughout his career.

“You don’t change who you are after 14 years of playing football,” offensive coordinator Khari Jones, a former quarterback, said of Glenn. “He’s a smart quarterback and we’re going to put him in the right positions to do what he needs to do.

“He had a good start (to the game) and then there were a few throws I know he’d like to have back. That’s OK. Every quarterback who has ever played the game has had games like that. It’s not what happened (that matters now), but how you react to it. I know he’ll react well. I had Kevin for three years in Hamilton and he didn’t have many games like that. I know it was a tough one for him and he’ll come back strong.”

Glenn finished his first Lions game 18 for 28 with 251 yards, two touchdowns and the four picks.

“I don’t think that game is any indication of what our season is going to be like,” he said. “If you ask any fan whether they’d like to win the Grey Cup or win the first game of the season, they’ll say, ‘win the Grey Cup.’ It’s great for a story right now, but we’re not even going to be thinking about this game once the season continues on.”

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